Course there's the downside of China too. Consider the Ghost cities, built in anticipation of an influx of people that never came: Yujiapu, Yujiapu, and Meixi Lake.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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That's an article all right! But it's from 5 years before the article I posted, and it's just detailing what China THOUGHT was going to happen.
Here it is 9 years later and it turned out they were wrong.
It's okay for countries to make mistakes. We err on the side of not wasting money. They err on the side of preparation. They have more money to waste than we do so good for them.
What happened is that vast majority of these ghost cities have been filling up, and as a result of massive investment into housing 90% of the population in China owns their homes now. Meanwhile, US wastes billions on its constant invasions of other countries. Iraq alone cost over 3 trillion. Your regime errs on side of wasting absurd amounts of money on crimes against humanity while ignoring the needs of the people living in burgerland.
Ontario did the same thing
Very good point and one that people often forget. It's literally impossible to build high speed rail without first becoming an authoritarian dictatorship.
TIL Germany, Belgium, Austria, France and Portugal are authoritarian dictatorships
They are, but that's not actually relevant to this discussion.
Don't forget Taiwan as well. They have HSR although to be fair it's also a very small country.
US is the authoritarian dictatorship here, and it can't build shit. Meanwhile, worker democracy in China is able to build infrastructure at scale. Don't take my word for it though, every western study admits this
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva%20images/Democracy%20Perception%20Index%202023.pdf
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
- https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/understanding-ccp-resilience-surveying-chinese-public-opinion-through-time
I don't know, man. This sounds like some "the enemy is both strong and weak" BS to me. When they can't build a HSR in California they are an unplanned economy but when I point out the cost of China's flavour of government suddenly the US is a dictatorship?
I've got no issues acknowledging when China does some good things but come on. I was rightfully making fun of the implication of your meme here and you come back with doublespeak. There's really no need to pick a side and defend it at all costs, we can acknowledge the positive and negative things.
an unplanned economy
a dictatorship
These ideas are not in nearly as much tension as you think. California is a bourgeois dictatorship (like all other capitalist nations), and the bourgeoisie require the government to forgo centrally planning the economy in order to maximize their exploitation of the people (and therefore profit margins).
but when I point out the cost of China’s flavour of government suddenly the US is a dictatorship?
I mean I linked you a whole bunch of western studies showing that people living in China see their country as being more democratic than people living in US see theirs. Furthermore, a study analyzing decades of US policy has found the following:
That certainly does sound like US is a dictatorship of capital to me where regular working class people have little say in the running of the system.
My argument is based on the empirical evidence available, meanwhile I have no idea what you base your position on.
I'm confused by this, because it looks like China is proving you wrong right now?
Now I'm confused, what do you mean? I never said they didn't have a great high speed rail network. I think they've done a great job and I've got no problem acknowledging that. I was just poking fun at the implication of the meme.
Well, China, a participatory democracy with a 95 percent approval rating according to a Harvard study, is in the meme building high speed rail, and you're claiming you have to be an authoritarian dictatorship to build high speed rail?
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